Avatar: The Next Journey
by Digitick
Summary: 30 Years have passed since Aang defeated Fire Lord Ozai.But now a new war is brewing, and with Aang gone and the Avatar Spirit trapped, it's up to the next generation to safe the world. Read inside for more info.
1. Prologue

**Here's an interesting idea that formed in my imagination one day and refused to go away.**

**Set not too far in the future, prepare to meet the kids of all your favourite characters from the show, plus prepare to find out a deep dark secret in the Avatar world.**

**Lots of intrigue, action, romance and adventure are promised in:**

**Avatar: The Next Journey**   
_Prologue_

It seems almost longer then 30 years since Aang, The Last Airbender and Avatar, took on his quest to defeat the terrible Fire Lord Ozai and his conquest of war to rule the Four Kingdoms.  
And so, after finally having mastered all of the elements of Water, Earth and Fire along with his own Air Bending skills, he travelled to the heavily guarded fortress-like palace of the Fire Nation's King accompanied by his loyal companions and friends: Katara, a masterfull Water Bender, Sokka, her brother and a warrior, Toph, a blind Earth Bender with incredible skills, and the ousted relatives of Ozan; his son Prince Zuko and his brother General Iroh.  
Together the group snuck into the palace and managed to reach the main chambers of the Fire Lord where Aang, in a bid to save him and his friends from the overwhelming odds they faced against the hundreds of warriors guarding the palace, challenged the ruthless tyrant to a duel of Agni Kai, which Ozai accepted, confident in his victory. 

"Aah, and what a fight it was" Aang muttered as he lay on his bed, a long white beard trailing down over his hands as he stared up the ceiling while soft rays of sunlight flowed in through the windows of newly rebuildt Southern Air Temple, once agian busy with the sounds and lives of Apprentice & Master Airbenders going about their daily duties.  
Aang smiled as he listened to the hustle and bustle outside, and let his mind wander back to that fatal day so long ago.  
They had fought for hours, Ozai sending attack after merciless attack at Aang which the young Avatar dodged and diverted again and again, always blocking, never attacking.  
The Fire Lord mocked him and called him a coward, just as the reason for Aang's defensive moves became clear: The long awaited Solar Eclipse.   
As the Sun dissappeared behind the dark Moon, Aang went from defensive to offensive, and drove the ever weakening Ozai back with blast after blast of combination attacks of Water, Earth and Air.  
Finally the Fire Lord fell to his knees, completely drained, and as Aang asked him if he gave up, nodded and submitted.  
But in the end it was a lie, and just as Aang let his guard down, the Eclipse started to dissappear, and in a final act of defiance Ozai slammed Aang with a double fisted Fire Bendig blast to the chest, sending Aang flying off the Arena even as Aang bended most of it back at him.  
Even though he'd won, the price had been high, as he had to carry the terrible wounds for the rest of his life, wounds even Katara couldn't heal properly with her healing powers.  
A hacking cough racked Aang's body, and he coughed and weezed as a young apprentice ran up to his side and helped him up.  
Aang grimaced as he sat up and felt the usual sharp pain stab through his chest. "Here you go sir" the apprentice said as he brought a cup up to Aang's lips. Aang reached over and grabbed the cup of water, took a sip and lay back down again, his old bones creaking as he moved.  
Even though he was only 65, the wounds had taken it's toll on his body and had left him feeling weak, a feeling that grew by the day as he grew older. As he lay back his mind drifted back, and he though of the days afterwards, how after all the rogue Fire Nation warriors had been rounded up, Azula amongst them, his friends had split up and taken up head roles in their nations.  
Katara became The Water Queen of the Northern Water Tribe while Sokka returned to his home at the Southern Tribe to rebuild it, becoming the Tribal Chief later on.  
Toph took over the rule of the Earth Kingdom, forcefully, and ruled from Ba Sing Se with a little help from Iroh, would left his nation in the capable hands of Prince Zuko, who was now called Lord Zuko.  
"Ah Katara, I'll see you soon" Aang whispered as he felt himself slowly drifting off to the last long sleep he'd ever have.  
"Master Aang?" the young boy asked, looking up from his seat next to the Avatar's bed. "Master?" he asked again as he stood up and gentle shook Aang's shoulder before running to the door and out of the room to inform the Master Airbenders of Aang's departure.  
As he left, Aang's body glowed slightly, and then his ghostly shape rose up before dissappearing into thin air while reaching up for something, or someone with a smile on his face.

Seconds later, all over the Four Kingdoms in each of the Avatar Temples, monks sat and meditated, their eyes closed as they sent their minds and spirits adrift to monitor and follow the Avatar Spirit as it searched for the next person in the cycle in which it would be reincarnated in.  
But up in the mountains of the Earth Kingdom, on temple was doing more then just watching.  
"We've almost closed on it Sir" A monk said, his eyes glassy as he look into a world outside of this world. "The Avatar Spirit will shortly be yours to use as you wish"  
"Good" A figure in the shadows said, crossing his arms and smiling as he watched the collection of monks sway back and forth as they bend their spiritual powers to the task at hand: Capturing the Avatar Spirit and forcing it into the waiting hands of the man behind them. 

In the spirit world, a blue glowing force sped across the waves of aether, heading towards the pull of the soul that would next house it.  
As it closed in on it's targets, it suddenly reeled as a volley of lights hit it, striking it again and again as they tried to force it towards another path, the great Spirit of Nature thrashing it tried to fight of it's attackers while the other desinens below run away from the battle as fast as they could.  
With an inaudible roar the Spirit found an opening and rammed it's way through it's attackers, latching on to a spirit that felt familiar, incredible familiar, and diving into the person's essence. 

"Uragiru, wake up! What happened? Where's the Avatar Spirit?" the man asked as he pulled up the unconcious body of the head monk and shook him, slapping him through the face until he woke up.  
"Uhh..." The monk groaned as he came to, his face pale and dotted with sweat. "Sorry my lord, but the Spirit managed to escape and find a host to hide in"  
"Wonderfull. Now we'll have to wait again until the new Avatar is ready before we can attempt to gain the spirit for our use"  
"No lord, it didn't reach the true host" Uragiru said. "It's gone into hiding inside someone, which means if we find that person, we find the Avatar Spirit"  
"Excellent. I shall order my men to send word to our outlaying troops to start the search immediately" the man said as he walked away past the other out cold monks, the light of a lantern he passed by the door revealing the aged features of General Fong of The Earth Kingdom Army.

And far away, in the South Pole, a fierce snow storm whipped around a small figure of a girl as she ran towards the open door of a house in the Southern Water Tribe Village, an older teen girl waving her on anxiously while the hard flakes whipped past the threshold.  
"Come on, hurry up already!"  
The struggling girl in the storm opened her mouth to reply when suddenly the sky above rumbled and crackled with hard booms of thunder, and then a massive bolt of light, like a streak of lightning, crashed down unto her, her body lifting up into the air and floating there for a few seconds before the light winked out and she fell back down to the earth, her white hair with black streaks on the ends spilling out to whip around her face as she lay out cold on the ground.

To be continued...

**So, what do ya think?**

**Intrigued?**

**Interested?**

**Then check back in tomorrow for one intense Bender Battle in the South Pole.**

**Till Then!**


	2. Prologue Pt2

**Yep, as you've geussed it by now that 'ol scoundrel General Fong (from the episode "The Avatar State") is yet again after the power of the Avatar for his own use, going as far as to try capture it while it was in it's free, untamed state tsk tsk**

**Anyhow, time to meet the new unknowing host of the spirit, in the next chapter of:**

**Avatar: The Next Journey**   
_Prologue_ pt.2 

"Anything to report?"  
"Nothing yet sir" the young luitenant standing in front of General Fong's desk in his chambers said, bowing slightly.  
"We're still awaiting for reports to come in from the Southern regions though. Hopefully they'll have the information you seek"  
"They had better. For your sake" Fong glared. 

_Clouds. That was all she could see around her. Lots and lots of clouds as she drifted along through them. __  
__"Where.. where am I?" she thought as she blinked and glanced around, trying to find anything in the thick cover of clouds encircling her. __  
__Slowly the clouds thinned out, and she found herself looking down on a wide flat vista on which a man was walking, a man with a body of coiling air, a beard of crackling fire and dressed in robes of surging water. __  
__The man stopped and glanced up at her, and she felt her heart speed up. __  
__"I.. know you" they both said, just as something impacted hard with the surface of the land with enough force to make it tremble and then splinter into a massive hole that led into a bottomless void, the hole expanding outward so fast that before she could even shout a warning the earth vanished beneath the man and he was sent falling down-_   
"NO!" Miko shouted as she woke up with a start, her hands cluthing her bed cover tightly to her chest as her heart drummed hard inside.  
Gasping hard, she ran a hand across her forehead still wet with cold sweat, her heartrate dropping down to it's normal soft thumps as she glanced around at her room and wondered how she'd got there.  
She caught her reflection in her mirror and looked at the fouteen year old skinny girl looking back at her, a normal looking face with deep blue eyes and a small button nose that some might consider cute, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. Except for maybe the white hair with it's black streaks, and a small red scar-like birthmark on her neck.  
"Just a plain, normal girl" she thought, sighing.  
She broke eye contact with herself and closed her eyes as she tried to remember what had happened to her.  
The last thing she remembered was that she'd gone down to her favourite spot on the tundra's, then the storm came up, then she was running home, and then- nothing.  
She started to get out of bed when a throbbing pain shot through her head, and as she clutched at her head she felt a bump just on the back of her head.  
"What? How'd I get this?" she wondered as she felt the bruise, and then jumped as her bedroom's door slammed open and a tall, lean sixteen year old teenage girl came bursting into her room.  
"I heard screaming. Are you alright?" the girl asked as she ran up to Miko's side, and before Miko could reply she was grabbed by the girl as the girl held her hand against Miko's forehead ("Hmm, don't feel warm"), held her eyes and mouth open ("looks OK") and finally checked her head.  
"Ikaru, stop it!" Miko grimaced as her sister's fingers brushed over the still tender bump. "I'm Ok, really!"  
"Yikes, this bump doesn't look good-"  
"No, really I'm fine" Miko said as she pulled away from her over protective sibling. Actually, Ikaru wasn't really her sister, more her half-sister since Miko was adopted, but for some reason Ikaru always took it on herself to protect her 'little sister' from everything.  
"See, I'm alri- Ouch!" Miko grimaced, as she started to get up from bed only to have a throbbing headache slam through her head.  
"Wow, what happened to me?" she asked as she sat back down on her bed.

"Uh, hello? Hit by a bolt from above? Remember, yes?"  
"Remember, no" Miko said, as she held up her hand.  
"Yeah, figures after that blast" Ikaru said as she grabbed her hand and helped her up to her feet. "You got hit by lightning during that storm last night, and it really knocked you off your feet. Luckily it only knocked you out, and not dead"  
"Yeah, lucky" Miko grimaced as she started to get dressed and felt another small ache behind her forehead.  
"Aw, don't be like that" Ikaru said as she grabbed Miko's shoulders and steered her to and out of the bedroom door.  
"All you need is a good strong breakfast, and you'll feel tons better"   
"I'm not so sure-"  
"Tons better" Ikaru growled, and Miko shut her mouth as she was led to the kitchen downstairs. 

"Anything yet?" General Fong growled, his hands folded together in front of him and his eyes glaring over them at his young luitenant.  
"Still nothing sir, but we're still awaiting the last report from our forces at the South Pole, and should have them any minute-"  
Knock Knock  
"Enter!" Fong shouted.  
"Sir! The Southern Forces eagle has arrived. Here's their report" the soldier said as he entered, and walked up to the desk where he bowed down to one knee and held up the scroll in palm of his hand.  
"Read it, Ishi Kiri"  
Ishi picked it up, unrolled it, scanned it and read:  
"Massive storm activity previous day. A massive discharge of lightning was seen striking somewhere in the Southern Water Tribe village.  
Have heard reports of someone being struck, and survived.  
Awaiting further instructions"  
"Ah, at last, I think we've found what we've been looking for" Fong smiled.  
"Send them this message: Investigate, confirm report and person, and then capture. Use force if anyone gets in their way" 

"Ah, finally awake huh?" Sokka grinned as he watched Miko being man(woman)handled to the table and dropped into a seat.  
"How're you feeling Miko?" Suki asked as Ikaru rushed past the table to grab a wooden plate and start to cover it in food.  
"Not too bad, considering I almost got electrocuted" Miko said, smiling as she sat and glanced at the people she called "Family".   
Sokka, with his brown hair streaked with white shaved at the sides and a ponytail on top with a beard that ringed his mouth, Suki with her long brown hair just as speckled as his and Ikaru, their youngest daughter, the in between kid with her Dad's strength but her Mom's looks.  
She was lucky to have been adopted by them.  
It was 14 years ago that Sokka had one morning been woke up by a hammering to his door, and grumbling, he stumbled down to find himself face to face with a screaming baby girl in a basket on his doorstep, with nothing else but a letter saying "Please take care of her".  
So Sokka & Suki had taken her in as one of their own, and Miko couldn't be happier with them. Even though she did sometimes wake up in the middle of the night from a strange dream with tears on her cheeks.  
"Here, eat!" Ikaru said as she dumped the plate in front of Miko and went of to work on the cleaning the other dishes.  
She opened the window a bit, and then closed her eyes, took a deep breath and started to wave her hands through the air.  
Miko, stuffing some food into her mouth, watched as with a soft liquidy sound the ice outside melted and flowed through the air in through the window and down unto the plates, where it began to swirl as she spun her hand.  
Miko sighed and wished again for the thousandth time that she could do that, and took another bite of her food.  
Ikaru was one of the best Water Benders the village had ever had, even better then Katara. And she was one of the best trained fighters they had.  
Miko wasn't even close enough to say the same.  
A non-bender and clumsy, she often felt a little useless sometimes.   
Miko sighed again and was about to take another bite when a hard series of knocks banged against the front door.  
"Agh, who could that be?" Sokka grumbled as he got up and headed to the door. "They know I don't like to be disturbed during breakf- Won?" Sokka frowned as he opened the door and stared at the young boy panting hard in front of him. "What're you doing her? Aren't you suppose to be up in the look-out post?"  
"Y-Yes... sir..." Won gasped as he got his breath back.  
"But I...had to.. warn you. There's a ... group of Earth Kingdom warriors heading this way. And they're armed to the teeth and looking very angry" 

**To Be Continued...**

**Be sure not too miss the next Chapter, as there's going to be one heck of a spectacular fight scene in it, I guarantee it.**

**P.S. One other thing: For Those of you who'd like to know more of the characters, go check what their names mean (look in Japanese dictionary).**

**The names might even hold clues as to what parts they'll play later on in the story **


	3. Prologue Pt3

**Thanks for the comment Shinobi Bender **

**As for your question on how well Miko can control the Avatar Spirit inside of her, you'll find out now in the next two chapters.**

**And it ain't going to be pretty...**

**Avatar: The Next Journey**  
_Prologue_ pt.3

"Are you sure you didn't just see an armed escourt?" Sokka asked as he stood in his doorway and stared at the young warrior in front of him.  
"Yes sir" Won said nervously. "They had a Carrier"  
That got Sokka's attention.  
Recently made by the Earth Kingdom for they armed forces, Carriers were basicly large wagons that, as they're name implied, carried tons of earth for their fighters to bend in terrians that didn't have any.  
If these guys had a Carrier, then they really meant business.  
"Won, go get Akka and the rest of the men and tell them to line up by the gates. I'll join them as soon as I can"  
Won nodded and ran off as fast as he could.  
"Ikaru!"  
"Yes Dad?" Ikaru's face peeked out from behind the archway leading to the kitchen.  
"I know you and Miko were listening, so go and get the Benders, just for in case, ok?"  
"On it" Ikaru said as she grabbed her warm coat, pulled it on and quickly made her way out towards the training fields.  
Sokka closed the door and headed up to his room where he pulled out and put on his sword and breastplate.  
As he reached out for his old steel boomerang, Suki came walking in with a worried look on her face.  
"You don't think they'd really.. attack us, do you?"  
"They've got a Carrier" Sokka said. "Which means they're not here for fun. But don't worry, we'll sort them out" he grinned.  
Suki gave a tight smile in return, and then moved forward, placed her hands on his shoulders and forced him down to sit.  
Before Sokka could ask her what she was doing, she stepped over to the table in the room, picked up a tin, unscrewed the lid, dipped in her fingers and started to apply the war paint to his face.  
"For luck" she said, and kissed him.

Meanwhile, up in her room, Miko sat and stared out towards the large wall of ice that encircled and protected the village, her village, and it was almost as if she could feel the approaching enemies.  
Not the warriors, but just the Benders and their energy.  
And also, she felt that she could do something about it.

Minutes later Sokka, his face a fierce mask of black and blue swirls, stood on the wall with his right hand man Akka on his side and stared out across the white flat terrain as he watched the large group of men marching towards them. The thunder of their feet was nothing compared to the rumble of the large beetle-like machine following closely behind them. "So, what do you think?" Sokka asked his friend.  
"We can take them" Akka sniffed. "Besides, they've only got so much dirt to throw around, while we've got a whole land to use"  
"I hope you're right" Sokka said, as he raised a spyglass up to his eye to get a closer look at the Earth Warriors.  
He spotted a very familiar looking mark or insignia on their shoulders, but before he could get a better look the leader of the small army raised his fist, and with a creek the Carrier came to a lurching stop before a few soldiers jump on board and started working on something.  
"Now what are they up to?" Akka voiced what Sokka wondered.  
In a few seconds they got there answer, as the soldiers quickly attached a catapult arm to the rear of the carrier, and then with a Twack! sent a large pile of dirt to come arching through the air to come crashing into the wall, barely making a crack in it.  
"Idiots! Fire all you want, you won't be able to bring down our walls" Akka grinned as the Carrier shot two more shots and then started to move forward again.  
Once they got with a few feet of the walls they came to a stop again, and the leader, a young man 'more teen then man' Sokka thought, stepped forward and shouted: "We have come in search of one person, and one person alone. Give us what we want, and no one else will need to suffer!"  
"Cocky, isn't he?" Sokka sneered.  
"And what if we don't want to do what you want us to do?" he shouted back down.  
"Then you die" Ishi Kirri said, raising his hand.  
With everyones eyes on him he clenched and made a fist, and then flung his hand open.  
And then with tremendous CRACK!!, the wall shattered and cracked and broke as the earth that had been shot into it, now slightly more mud, expanded rapidly and forced the wall open from the inside out and sent hundreds of men falling and screaming through the air.

Miko jumped as she heard the massive crash fill the air and looked out of her window to see a large cloud of snow bellow up into the sky.  
Inside of her head the feeling that she could help grew stronger and stronger by the minute, while the need to stay and be safe fought against it. Miko bit her lip as she stared out at the scene of devastation, and wondered what she should do?

"Captain, prepare another volley!" Ishi ordered as he and his Benders gathered the small pile of earth needed and prepared to move out.  
The captain bowed and turned to the Carrier only to shout out in concern, as the ice around the Carrier softened and turned to water, opening up to the sea underneath and sent the massive machine down into it's dark blue depths.  
"Who-?" Ishi growled as he scanned the remains of the wall for the Bender that had done it, and then spotted the girl about his age concentrating hard. She looked up and saw him glaring at her, smirked and flung her hand up into the air to send a large wave of water up and over him, sweeping him off his feet as he landed spluttering on the ground. Now he was really angry.  
"Attack!" he shouted as he got back up to his feet.

"I don't think you should have done that Honey" Sokka muttered as he, Akka and Ikaru hid behind the wall as it pinged and clattered by the barrage of stones being flung at them by Ishi and his men.  
"He deserved it" Ikaru sniffed, and then ducked her head as a piece of ice flew past her face as a hole shattered open next to her.  
"This is not good" Sokka said as he watched more and more holes open up along the wall.

Ishi grinned as he and his warriors made their way towards the pathetic Water Tribe Village. They're assault would soon destroy what little resistance they could muster, and then the Avatar Host would be theirs.  
Suddenly one of his Benders pointed towards the broken half of the wall and shouted: "Sir, look!"

"Hey, why'd they stop?" Ikaru asked as she peeked around their damaged bit of wall. "Dad?" she asked as she glanced back at her dad, and frowned when she saw the shocked look on his face.  
"What is it?" she asked, and followed his gaze.  
"Miko!" she gasped as she saw her step-sister walking among the pieces of broken ice like a sleepwalker, her eyes half closed as she slowly made her way out into the outside.  
"Miko, no!" Ikaru shouted and started to get up when her Dad grabbed her arm, pulled her down and held her tight as the screams began.

"It's her" Ishi said as he saw the girl's face, the same one from the report.  
"Get her!" he shouted to his benders, and they started to move forward on small patches of earth underneath their feet.  
And that's when it happened.  
"What-?" Ishi gasped in shock as his men suddenly shouted and screamed as they lost control of their powers and started to slam agianst each other or went falling face first to the ground only to be dragged around by the earth clinging to their feet.  
He stared in wide eyed shock at the scene in front of him, and then glanced up the girl. She stood with her head down, and then looked up with eyes and hair that glowed pure white, and then the last thing Ishi saw before he was knocked out, was her forming geysers of water, ice and earth around her that rushed out in every direction.

**It's not over yet!**

**Go on to the next chapter pronto!**


	4. Prologue Pt4

**Last of the oh so long Prologue, and then the story will really take place.**

**Till then, read on and enjoy as the world goes to heck in the next bit of:**

**Avatar: The Next Journey**   
_Prologue_ pt.4

Higher and higher up into the sky Miko floated, glowing bright with the power she felt surging up inside of her as she stared down at the Earth Kingdom invaders that had attacked and hurt her village, her friends, her family.  
Without even knowing how, she created large geysers of water, letting the dark columns of liquid swirl in a ring around her before she unleashed them on the enemy.  
And yet, she felt as if she was dreaming, as if she wasn't doing anything at all, as if something...someone else was doing all of this.  
And just for a second, she thought she felt that someone standing next to her, behind her, but before she could turn around or even glance behind her, a searing bolt of pain ripped through her head as she grabbed the sides of her head and opened her mouth in a silent scream.

Sokka and Ikaru watched in wonder at Miko's amazing bending abilties, which easily overpowered and scattered the Earth Kingdom warriors.  
"H-How is she doing that?" Ikaru asked as she stared at her adopted sister who had never shown any promise of any Bending whatsoever suddenly controlling the elements as if she'd been doing it for years.  
Sokka didn't answer her, his whole body frozen in shock.  
"It can't be" he muttered as he watched Miko's glowing form floating up high. There was only one person in all the Four Kingdoms who could do what she was doing, and that was the Aang.  
But before Sokka could think more on this, he saw Miko's body stiffen and then arch back as she gripped her head and opened her mouth wide, as if she was screaming, and the glow around her flared wildly.   
Although he didn't hear her scream, he felt it, inside his head, and then he heard it for real, as Ikaru suddenly grabbed her head and cried out in agony along with every other Water Bender in the village.  
Sokka glanced back to the Earth nation lot and saw that those benders that were still standing were also experiencing the same thing, kneeling or curled up on the ground as they clutched their heads in pain while the great geysers surged and bucked uncontrolled across the land, whipped around randomly as the person who'd made them spasmed and trembled up in the sky in white hot agony.

And it wasn't just at the pole. Across the world all of the benders screamed and cried as their heads burned with pain and their mastery of the elements failed and vanished.  
In the Earth Kingdom Queen Toph sensed the anger behind the pain as she and the members of her court lay shivering in agony on the throne floor.  
In the Northen Prison in the Fire Nation, in a lone cell of stone, a woman with long shaggy black hair smirked even as she twitched in pain as she felt the fear inside the blinding assualt on her senses while a few miles away the dark haired Fire Lord Zuko gasped as he was doubley assualted, with pain in his body but agony in his heart.  
At the Northen Water Kingdom the Queen trembled in fear as she felt waves of cold dread wash over her along with the piercing torment.  
And at the Southern Air Temple the grave of the Avatar glowed so bright that the light could be seen for miles.

"Ikaru! Ikaru!" Sokka shouted as he held his sobbing daughter in his arms as she shook with pain, the ice around her liquifing and freezing spontanously.  
"the pain.. the pain" she whispered "make it stop... please"  
Sokka's mind raced as he placed his daughter down to the ground and ran out across the snowfield, dodging a column of twisting water as it sped past him, and made his way onward until he stood below Miko.  
"Miko!" he shouted as loud as he could. "Miko! You have to stop! You're hurting everyone! You're hurting Ikaru!"  
Miko's eyes flashed open at the sound of that familiar name and glanced down at the man below her. He looked... familiar. He looked like...   
"Sokka?" she asked, except not in her voice.  
"Aang?" Sokka gasped as he heard his friends voice.  
And then rushed forward as the glow around Miko suddenly winked out and she dropped down to the ground.  
He caught her in his arms with a grunt and fell to the ground under her weight, holding her tightly agianst him as she lay passed out against his chest while the geysers around them vanished just as suddenly and the benders both water & earth found themselves free of the horrible pain they'd experienced.  
Sokka watched as the one time enemy army slowly regrouped and gathered their downed forces before retreating on small mounds of earth.  
He knew he should've given chase to them, but at the moment he'd much bigger things to worry about.

Ishi Kirri blinked slowly as he came to, waking up from what felt like a year's long nap, and found himself staring up at the ceiling of a tent, a lone lamp blazing from a hook at its center as it filled the space with light.  
He started to sit up from his bed, his mind a blank over how he'd gotten here, and then grimaced as he felt a slight twinge of pain on his cheek and forehead.  
He flung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, walked over to a chest in the corner, flung it open and pulled out a small mirror which he held in front of him and finally saw the scar that ran as straight up and over his cheek and ended about two fingers above his eyebrow.  
As he touched the dark red scar and felt the stitches he heard the tentflap open and turned around to see the captain of his soldiers walk in.  
"Liuetanent Kirri, it's glad to see you're alright-"  
"No time for flattery Captain" Ishi said as he cut the man off.  
"What happened?"  
"It was the girl, sir. We were about capture her as per your orders when she somehow managed to Water Bend a series of geysers against us"  
Ishi reeled slightly as he remembered the dark vortex sweeping him up and then the dizzying flight back down to the icy hard ground as he'd been thrown out.  
He was very lucky he hadn't broken his neck.  
"And then? How did she get away?" he asked. Surely some of his men must've rallied against her.  
"Well, she didn't Sir" The captain said, nervously.  
"We had to retreat"  
"It's was due to some power she had used to caused all our Benders to experience an extreme amount of pain, sir" he said quickly as he saw the look on Ishi's face.  
Ishi looked thoughtful as he traced his new scar.  
"It doesn't matter though. We have to capture her, no matter what" he said, thinking about what General Fong would do to him if he came back empty handed. "Ready the men, and then prepare to move out!"

Meanwhile, back at the recovering Water Tribe Village, Ikaru watched with a sad and puzzled face as her father placed two sacks of supplies into the boat in which Miko lay, still out.  
"Why Dad?" she asked again, wringing her hands.  
"Why do we have to go?"  
"I can't tell you Ikaru, we just don't have the time" he said as he made sure Miko and the supplies were secure.  
"Won will be with you for extra protection, but you have to go now!"  
"But why?" she asked, the tears falling down her face.  
Sokka walked up to her and hugged her before kissing her on her forehead.  
"There's a letter that'll help explain some of what's going on for you in your bag. For now, please just trust me and go. And keep an eye out for your sister. She's going to need you more now then you'll know"  
Ikaru stared at her father as she sniffed, bowed her head and then climbed into the boat and sat down next to Won, who started rowing down the dark river towards the ocean ahead.  
She glanced back once at her Mom and Dad waving at her, wiped away a tear, and then turned back to face the wide unknown waiting for her, and her sister.

**Ok then, so Miko's not so much in control as you'd have thought.**

**Also, what part will the others play in the coming journey?**

**Stay tuned for more to find out, starting with "First Steps" coming soon!**


End file.
